“Just as butter, for example, exists in milk as something totally permeating it, so does buddha nature permeate all sentient beings.” — Great [Passing into] Nirvana Sutra, quoted from: Ornament of Precious Liberation, Gampopa, translated by Ken Holmes, edited by Thupten Jinpa
During my visit to Taiwan earlier this fall (2024), there was a wonderful brief spare moment to visit the International Bodhisattva Sangha Temple in Taichung. It is intentionally located in the midst of the city to emphasize that the practice of the Dharma and our daily lives can and need to go together.
Every single aspect of the temple is full of symbolic meaning. One particular aspect I was reminded of during a recent session of the Gampopa Online Study Group hosted by Nalandabodhi Netherlands, was a standing buddha statue in the a small ‘window’ carved out of the wall at the gate. Our guide who warmly welcomed us shared that this was to show that we may lead busy lives and be caught up in the world of samsara but that within all of us there is, so to speak, a little buddha. That is precisely the point of Gampopa’s first chapter of the Ornament of Precious Liberation.
Wondering About Our Potential for Attaining Enlightenment
At the very beginning of his beautiful instructions found in this text, Gampopa emphasizes the need to “gain freedom from the deluded nature of samsara and to attain the highest enlightenment.” While all living creatures differ in their enlightenment potential, some being a direct cause for buddhahood and others further removed, every single one of them does posesses the innate potential for becoming a tathāgata (one of many synonyms for buddha).
“You might well wonder,” Gampopa writes, “‘Even if we or other ordinary people like us were to try very hard, how could we ever possibly attain enlightenment?’ In truth, anyone who practices with great effort cannot fail to reach enlightenment. Why? Because all forms of conscious life, including ourselves, posesss its prime cause. Within us is buddha nature.”
That all sentient beings are endowed with buddha nature is demonstrated by Gampopa in the first chapter through three reasons. Although those practicing the bodhisattva way of life, cultivating the great bodhicitta, have the potential to become buddhas in a short period of time and others are further removed from it, he repeatedly emphasizes that all have the possibility of enlightenment.
Obtaining the butter (buddahood) that is in milk (sentient beings)
Like the little buddha statue at the Bodhisattva Temple in Taichung is to illustrate that we all possess buddha nature within and as both a reminder and encouragement that we can attain buddhahood if we make an effort, Gampopa also underlines and exemplifies this in various ways. The example he starts out and concludes with, is that of butter being present in milk. Gampopa Sönam Rinchen writes:
“Just as it is possible to obtain the silver that is in ore, the oil that is in sesame seeds, and the butter that is in milk, so it is possible to attain the buddhahood that is in all sentient beings.”
We will see in the instructions in the following chapters that this doesn’t mean that every being has an equal opportunity and no effort is needed. Quite the contrary. Yet, for now, knowing that the prime cause is present within must be an encouraging thought. And whenever we come across a buddha statue like the one at the Temple in Taichung, think of milk or butter, the example offered by Gampopa, or whatever object or experience in our personal lives represents Buddha nature, we can remind ourselves of this truth. The question we should then ask ourselves is: what is the most excellent working basis for achieving buddhahood?
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